“Black women are so often shamed and penalized for the same physical attributes that are then praised, and made trendy for white women. This project is meant to capture the black woman’s experience as a hypersexualized being, who’s body is constantly appropriated in white society.” -Daniel Stewart

Daniel Stewart’s project highlights the many emotions women of color feel from the everyday probing and judging and justifying and robbing and claiming and so on and so forth. The list is endless. These images capture the resilience and frustration of that process. Beautiful project, Daniel.

Kiesh is a BedStuy based artist that started the CREATV arm of URBN FRESH. She is a creative director at HEADS Music and lead designer of experiential brand, NO MAYO. Kiesh is an agitator with passionate values in the ability for everyone to create. Her greatest inspirations cross Basquiat, Badu, Bukowski, and Chaucer Barnes.

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I am honestly confused. I’m told that “white” society steals the aesthetics of black folk because they find it attractive and want to be it but also they find the same exact aesthetics gross and disgusting and want to have nothing to do with them? Well which is it? I’m pretty sure something bigger than “whitey” is out there messing with the minds of the black population. By the way. White people grow big butts and curly hair. They don’t steal them. Nicki Minaj paid for hers AND her tits. Who’s appropriating what? Dreads are also not just a black thing. How about we get over the racism against whites and get back to being friends again?

“I am honestly confused. I’m told that “white” society steals the aesthetics of black folk because they find it attractive and want to be it but also they find the same exact aesthetics gross and disgusting and want to have nothing to do with them? Well which is it?”

Some things are both/and, not either/or. Back in the earliest days of slavery, black people were told how horrible their nappy hair was, how ugly their thick lips and fat asses. Somehow, that didn’t stop any of the rapes. Fast forward to now–because people seem to want to see these things in a bubble, like nothing that happened last month, last decade, last century counts. It’s all a part of a continue. So fast forward to now and black women are told that their natural hair and braiding styles are unprofessional and ugly, but a white model dons cornrows, and suddenly it’s “edgy” and “trendy”. Those thick lips are somehow still out of the beauty standard on black women, but white women have been getting injects for them for decades. And so on…

“I’m pretty sure something bigger than “whitey” is out there messing with the minds of the black population.”

Work on not taking it personally. Just as men don’t wake up in the morning, stretch and say, “How can I oppress women today?” and yet patriarchy is still a problem, no one is suggesting that you personally, or everyone who looks like you, made a conscious decision to act repulsed by black women’s physical traits while praising them in white women. But it does still happen on individual levels in the work place and on mass levels in the media. And it’s much more painful for those who have to experience it than it is for those who chance to read about it.